


Picking Up The Phone - Short Story

by Goldendoodlegamer11



Category: escape the night - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Awkward, Comfort, Crushing, Cute Ending, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluffy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sorry okay, Long-Distance Friendship, Nightmares, Phone Call, Phone Calls, Platonic Until Ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shipping, Short Story, Therapy, Unrequited Crush (well not really), being there for each other, phone, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 04:43:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16033220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldendoodlegamer11/pseuds/Goldendoodlegamer11
Summary: Eva hasn't picked up the phone for anyone. It's been 3 months since that horrible night that destroyed her world and crumbled it to nothing, and all she does is stay at home.People are getting concerned. But tonight is just her night to unwind and relax; she's going to get have an awesome dinner, have the warmest blankets and pjs ready to wear, and nothing is going to distract her from -And then her phone rings.And, for some odd reason, this is the time she picks it up.





	Picking Up The Phone - Short Story

**Author's Note:**

> I'm awful but I thought of this and I thought it was cute alright I'm sorry -  
> Also yes this was me procrastinating Best Show This Side Of The 1920s okay -
> 
> Also also, this is technically a sequel to Story Of The Century!

Eva hasn't picked up the phone in 3 months. It's a tainted object, smeared with nothing but sympathy for something they know nothing about. Concerned comments ask how she's doing, how Oli's doing, how Joey's doing. she dosen't _know_ , and frankly, she dosen't care. Well, alright, that's not true, but she can't bring herself to phone them. Tonight, she just wants a stress-free night with nothing to do and nothing to think about.

The sky just sparkles with peach-strawberry pinks and dark golds on the horizon before going black. Eva gathers her coziest pair of pajamas she can find (for some reason, the only pair that's currently clean are ones that are colored suspiciously like her 1920s outfit, coral, cream, and sparkling gold. She almost throws them away, but she dosen't feel like doing any laundry right now. She has a warm bath, the warmest and bubbliest she's ever dared have, and she decides to watch a movie.

Something fun...nothing with death or anything.

 

She lights the room in yellow-orange lights and buries herself on top of her bed. Her room feels cozy, safe, and she's gotten herself all the sweets one could ever imagine. Hot cocoa rests in her hands, warming them and sending happy buzzes through her hands up her arms.

 

Her thumb presses the _Change Channel_ button, flickering through re-runs of _The Amazing Race_  (they're back-to-back, and of _course_ it's the season that Joey happens to be in with Meghan,) and stupid game shows and romantic comedies. She presses one randomly that looks cute and adorable, and she sits back. 

Her phone goes off. 

More fans, more comments, more missed calls. Eva picks it up and throws it across the room. It lands against a chair. Eva shudders and tries to block out the sound. Her hands twitch, agitated, and she allows more calls to slip through. She knows they mean well, but how can she ever _explain_ what happened that night?

It keeps ringing.  
She tries to ignore it and focus on her movie - what was it called again? It dosen't matter. _Maybe they_ do _deserve to know what happened,_ Eva thinks for one crazy moment. _After all, they know me, they care about me, they should know what I went through._ Although, she can imagine _that_ conversation. 

"Oh yeah! I went to a party, in the 1920s, by the way! As the Journalist, and I went exploring with Shane, only for him to be poisoned and killed! A lot of our friends kept dying, they kept turning to me, I had to save two different people from death, and because of me two other people died! What fun!"

 

_Ugh._

She buries herself in a blanket she's found, also coral, and tries to watch her movie. Though her mind keeps becoming muddled with harsh and even absurd thoughts of how to tell everyone what happened. She contemplates that it dosen't have to be her task to take on, specifically that it should be Joey, since hey, he got them into this mess anyways! But Joey's practically disappeared off the face of everything, mostly his accounts.

There's an occasional post by him about his health, and how he's doing, condolences and prayers and all that, but besides that...nothing. And she's tried to contact Oli, but the line's always been busy. He's _probably been picking up calls from people who care about him,_ a small voice sneers in her head. _Unlike you._

 

Eva suddenly feels very, very alone.

Beside her, her small cat purrs reassuringly. Eva absentmindedly pets her, thanking her quietly, but she decides to message them. It's worth a shot, right?

 

The tan skinned honey-haired girl sighs, and picks up her phone. She messages Joey first, then Oli. Then her parents, then her sister, then some of her comments. A wave of comfort and love fills her tiny screen, and warmth stirs in comfort in her chest. She messages them until they ask what happened. She's not ready.  
She puts her phone away.

Almost a half hour passes as she watches her movie. Neither fellow survivor messages her back. She finds herself thinking about her recent dreams.

 

One particularly horrible one that her dreams are tortured with was an awful streak of memories; _the mansion, exploring it, and she was her full Journalist form, colours of terra cotta and chestnut around her when suddenly she came face to face with Oli, who was very very dead._

 _She heard herself scream something about him; "No! You're supposed to be alive! I don't understand - I saved you! I lost everyone else, I can't lose-" T_ _here were dropping bodies are all around her; Shane, Andrea, Lele...it was too much, and suddenly she was in the electric chair, no one to save her. And then there was Arthur with a rag, shoving over her nose and mouth-_

 She had snapped awake, gurgling something. Tears were smeared across her face as she wiped them away.

 _It's alright,_ her brain comforted her as her heart pounded in her chest. _It wasn't real._

 

From then on, nightmares had plagued her violently, and she had yet to have a peaceful sleep for three months. 

 

She stays currently, her head rested on her pillow, her movie now halfway done, yellow-orange light giving the room a warm coral glow. She just wants to stay there, forget everything, to never fall asleep and never talk to anybody and never have to carry the weight of surviving -

And then her phone rings. 

She grumbles to herself, mainly. She twirls he phone in her hands. It's not a number she recognizes, which she's kind of comforted by. She's not really why, but she hits _answer_. "Hello?" Her voice sounds a bit too unused, but she coughs.

"He - Hello?" The voice on the other end sounds just as confused and awkward. "Is this you, Eva? I have absolutely no idea if I have the right number, I just got it from a friend and I have no idea -" Despite herself, Eva grins warmly. "It's me, Oli." _You dork._

 

"Oh - phew!" Immediately after the confusion is cleared, the two both go silent. For a second Eva scolds herself for not saying anything, but then again, how could she? With what they've both been through, it seems that they could never talk about it...about _anything._

"So...why did you call me?" Eva cringes; it sounds so defensive with the walls she's put up. Again, another awkward silence that threatens to eat her alive.

 

"I just wanted to see how you were doing; it's been kinda lonely - I haven't really been doing too much...have you tried to get in contact with Joey?" Eva sighs; of _course_ she has. But with Joey trying to dive back into his YouTube videos and avoiding the two of them, it's hard to try and contact him, at all. 

"Yeah - I wonder why he hasn't commented, or tried to contact us back, or..."

 

"Yeah." Eva wants to crawl into a hole and straight-up die. I don't get it - _why can't I talk to him, like it's a normal conversation?_ Somehow she knows the answer. It's since this _isn't_ a normal conversation, and they've not thought to talk about anything until _now_ , and...

"How - how are you doing?" Stupid question. Probably simple answer. 

 

"What do you think? Were you and I at the same party?" He jokes. "Seriously - I can't handle anything having to do with parties ever again!" 

"Hah, I hear that."

"I never want to go to anything related to a party ever again - I want nothing to do with fancy attire, or a party, or the 1920s, or Joey, or y-" He seems to realize his mistake too late and shuts up. "Wait - I'm sorry! I didn't mean that!" Oli recovers quickly from the other line. "I swear it was an accident-"

"It's alright." Eva's lungs squeeze, feeling hurt. "Really. It's fine."

 

"I'm sorry - I didn't mean that at all. I guess I just want to forget about everything that's happened...I've ignored calls from my family, I don't really talk to anyone, I'm having nightmares all the time and I only just thought it was a good idea to call you." His voice sounds more tired and confused than she remembers. "I was scared - I felt bad about you going through that, having to save me, having to watch so many people die, and I didn't know where Joey was at - I couldn't really think of the right thing to say. I'm sorry."

 He pauses, then continues.

"I feel really...lonely. Haunted. Like I know something I shouldn't and how no one'll get it - you know?"

 

Eva almost drops her phone, but grabs ahold of it and puts it to her ear again. "Yes! Yes, exactly!" She's pretty sure she's shaking. "I'm so sorry I didn't call you or Joey sooner, but I just felt like I couldn't talk to anyone...even you guys. _Especially_ you guys."

 

 She smiles slightly.

"It seems silly, but I felt like I had to keep it to myself."

 "Yeah - I get it. It almost feels like I shouldn't have deserved to get out of there...we all did. Andrea, Lele, all of them. I feel like maybe I should've have..."

 

Eva gives a small gasp, wanting to reach through his phone and punch him. "Oli! It isn't your fault anyone died! You of everyone should know that!"  
"I know. It's just...hard not to think that way sometimes."

 

More silence.

"Do you want to talk more?" She asks, not sure if her heart would take a rejection. 

"If you don't mind."

 

They talk for a good half hour, about...everything. Sometime in there, Eva's voice breaks, and she's a mess, but it's alright, because so is Oli. They talk about Lele's heroics, Andrea's sweet personality, Shane's short-lived pain, the carnival, him and Tim almost dying, the terror, the brief moments when they thought they were all safe. Eventually, they start to become more comfortable talking. Eva leans back into her pillows, settling into her standard _on-the-phone_ sitting.  
_This feels nice. It feels right.  
_ Suddenly it's late, and the conversation has completely dissolved into just talking about anything, laughing, talking about how they've startled themselves so many times with basically nothing. Eva feels like they could talk forever, and eventually they just crack jokes, bringing up stupid topics that make Eva want to face-palm but also laugh.

 

"I remember I shocked myself on a light switch the other day - I nearly  _died!_ " Oli's saying. Eva exhales into a laugh. "Me too - I swear I nearly passed out when my lamp would shock me. And every time I turn on the TV, the news is probably the first thing I skip." For some reason she knows Oli's nodding on the other line. "I heard swing music the other day and I basically had a heart attack."

Eva smiles. Her grin falters. "But really. How are you doing? I know it's been three months and all..." She waits for him to reply.

 

Oli hesitates on the other line. "Again, haunted. But...nice. I'm glad we're talking again."

"Me too."

"Well, anyway's, it's late, I have to probably go soon-"

"Wait!" Eva curls up into herself in sudden embarrassment.

 

Man, _did that sound desperate. Way to go, Gutowski._ "I was thinking...could we talk tomorrow? We could start some sort of therapy thing, where we can talk over the phone, or over Skype or something, maybe every day? At least for a little bit."

 

"That sounds nice. Really nice. It'll kinda be our thing, yeah?"

"Exactly."

"Sounds great." She can hear the warmth and gratitude in his voice. "Night Eva."

"Night Oli."

 

* * *

Oli hangs up. He clutches his phone in his hands, ease making his shoulders sag in slight excitement. _She's going to call me tomorrow._ And then, to his terror, his stomach flutters. It's been that way for a good while, and he absolutely despises it. _It's essentially Stockholm Syndrome,_ he tells himself. _You've just grown attached to her because you survived with her._

_And yet..._

Man does he hate this. But it doesn't matter. They'll talk online for however long they dare. Whatever he's feeling will fade back to friendship in no time at all.  

He hopes.

  _Well, we'll be talking tomorrow. And everything'll be okay._

 

But as soon as he's asleep, it only takes about 10 minutes for awful dreams to circulate in his head. Shane dying, Justine dying, Eva dying...he wakes himself up, screaming something indistinguishable. It takes him a moment to regain composure, and then he picks up the phone.

* * *

 

Almost immediately after she's fallen asleep, Eva wakes up to a phone call. She almost ignores it, but then sees the number.

"Hello?"

"It's technically tomorrow _here_."

 

Eva can't help it. She laughs. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh I'm sick. Anyways I really hope you enjoyed reading! ^^ also I hope that LA - London time difference joke landed pff-


End file.
